Spartan Profiles: Nicholas Perricone

THE WRINKLE CURE

            In 1513 Juan Ponce de Leon sailed the coast of Florida in search of the Fountain of Youth.  He never found it.  Nearly five centuries later, a Spartan medic found it—not quite a magical fountain, but a scientific breakthrough that works.  The “secret”—Alpha Lipoic Acid, Vitamic C Ester and DMAE—was discovered by dermatologist and scholar Nicholas Perricone, M.D. ’82, whose best-selling book The Wrinkle Cure (Rodale 2000) has been called “the finest original thinking of the past 25 years in the fields of anti-aging and skin rejuvenation.”

            Widely known as the “father of the inflammation theory of aging,” Perricone just published a new book, The Perricone Prescription (Harper Collins 2002), in August in concert with his second television special for PBS.   “It came out last week and I just learned it’s No. 1 on the New York Times best selling list,” he noted from his Florida home.  “My first book is No. 4.” 

            Nicholas owns a private practice in Connecticut and is CEO of his company, Clinical Creations.  He owns dozens of U.S. and international patents on anti-aging, has published many scholarly articles in medical journals, and has won many awards, including the 2001 Eli Whitney Award, which also went to such inventors as Igor Sikorsky (helicopter) and Buckminster Fuller (geodesic dome).  He also chairs the annual International Symposium on Aging Skin.

            The Perricone success story is truly remarkable, forced by the fact that no major corporation would buy into his work.  “When I looked in the microscope, it seemed that every disease, every cancer, had inflammation,” he says.  “But when I asked people if inflammation could be the cause, I was told, ‘No, no, no.’”  Later, while interning at Yale Medical School and developing an interest in dermatology, he would observe samples of skin, and again saw that damaged skin had inflammation.  So he pursued this line, and ultimately came out with a three-tier strategy for combating inflammation—a dietary component, a nutritional supplement component, and a product applied directly on the skin.  Rejected by all the corporations he approached, he patented his discovery and went into business on his own, “learning as I went along.”  In 1998, Nordstrom’s Atlanta store carried his line.  People trying the product realized it really worked, word spread, and his book topped the sales chart.  Today, he is entertaining offers from just about every major cosmetic company to acquire his technology, which he applies to his own products and licenses to other companies.

            Nicholas takes great pride in being an adjunct professor at MSU’s College of Human Medicine.  A native of New Haven, CT, he explains why he chose to attend medical school in East Lansing.  “MSU had a new school with a unique, humanistic orientation, which intrigued me,” says Nicholas.  “I was interested in treating people, not diseases.  Coming to MSU was the best decision of my life.”  He had many great influences.  “Everybody was inspiring at Michigan State,” he says.  “The whole pediatrics department was phenomenal, so I can’t single out any one single person.”  He does single out a surgeon—James McGillicudy.  “I watched this guy truly save lives,” recalls Nicholas, a member of MSU’s Beaumont Tower Society.